{"id":467432,"date":"2026-03-10T08:25:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T08:25:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/467432\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T08:25:17","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T08:25:17","slug":"stephen-donald-weighs-in-on-dave-rennies-possible-assistants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/467432\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Donald weighs in on Dave Rennie’s possible assistants"},"content":{"rendered":"

With an All Blacks<\/a> head coach waiting in the wings, it\u2019s now all about who will join him and whether Dave Rennie will keep any of the current assistants who are still contracted with New Zealand<\/a> Rugby.<\/p>\n

Rennie was named the new head coach of the All Blacks last Wednesday, after over nine years away from New Zealand.<\/p>\n

The former Wallabies and Chiefs<\/a> head coach explained that \u201che\u2019s keen\u201d to bring in his own assistants, but understands that there are conversations to be had with the board and the incumbents.<\/p>\n

Former All Black winning first-five Stephen Donald<\/a> has been coached by Rennie and his rumoured lead assistant candidate, Neil Barnes.<\/p>\n

Barnes is the current head coach of Taranaki and was involved with the Chiefs for a long period of time with Rennie, and other rumoured candidate, Andrew Strawbridge.<\/p>\n

Donald, speaking on\u00a0The Breakdown, explained what their possible portfolios could be, and what that could mean for the current crop of assistants who remain after Scott Robertson\u2019s departure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, I mean, straight away, the first one that comes to mind is the Taranaki farmer Neil Barnes. I would think he\u2019ll be high on the list, obviously, as a forwards coach,\u201d Donald told The Breakdown.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t let the exterior fool you. He\u2019s a very intelligent, smart and attacking minded coach, which is the exciting thing, so I\u2019d imagine he\u2019s an obvious one.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd then I think Andrew Strawbridge is another obvious one, who\u2019s been there right through a lot of Rennie\u2019s career. He\u2019ll be, I would imagine, in the skills department as he\u2019s big on the micro details we have, footwork around catch and pass, so I\u2019d imagine he will be another one of the real key ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 42-year-old former first-five turned broadcaster believes that a scrum coach, which could be Jason Ryan, would have to be in the environment as well, as Barnes would take charge of a lot of the other roles.<\/p>\n

\u201cBarnsey I imagine would be forwards, and then there\u2019d be a scrum coach separate of it, and Barnsey would do things like kick off receives and stuff like that.<\/p>\n

\u201cStrawbridge would be very much across everything with the skills, like obviously your extra sessions that would be run by Strawbridge, as far as up-skilling and I guess improving the All Blacks in that field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former All Black Jeff Wilson<\/a> adds that because of how the appointment process played out, he would like to believe that NZR will allow Rennie to appoint the team he would prefer heading into a short-term contract.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that the process of appointing the coach was thorough, I\u2019d like to think that this appointment process is the same, Dave Rennie wants to get his guys.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019ll get some people he\u2019s got real trust in, he\u2019s already talked about how he feels as though he\u2019s got some people who can make a difference immediately, and that\u2019s what he\u2019s going to need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wilson hopes the process will also take into account what happened under Robertson, and that Rennie will be challenged on who he would like to bring into the environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I want to make sure that we get the best people available as well, and I\u2019d like to think that there\u2019s another interview process that goes on.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat Dave Rennie doesn\u2019t just get carte blanche to go, these are the guys I want, and we have to live with this because ultimately, what we\u2019ve seen is that sometimes it hasn\u2019t worked, sometimes the wrong people have come in, sometimes they\u2019ve had people in this last regime who have walked away.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to think they don\u2019t rush this either. Take their time to make sure the right people understand what it means to be an All Black.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With an All Blacks head coach waiting in the wings, it\u2019s now all about who will join him…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":467433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-467432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=467432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/467432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/467433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=467432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=467432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=467432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}